Blood Freely Given
by maybesomedaysameen
Summary: Sameen is not really human and Root doesn't really care.


The first thing you feel when you coalesce is the electricity. The last time you were corporeal, the new world was just beginning, coal and soot permeating the air and the buildings starting to climb. Now, once you are all together, you breathe in the electric air and look around at tall, shinning towers stretching towards the sky.

The building you are standing on is low, solid, made of brick. You can hear people going about their lives inside and you know this building is for living. The hum of electricity swirls around you on a cool, autumn breeze and you take a moment to adjust to your solid state. You have not been real for a long time and you have not been human for even longer.

This new, now unfamiliar state brings with it sensations that do not exist when you are shadow. You are hungry. The feeling claws at your insides, presses on your throat, and you wonder what prey this new world holds. Do its people hum with electric blood? Will their hearts feed your bone deep hunger?

You step forward, glide across the gravel-topped building, step up onto the ledge. The people below you look dim. They don't crackle like the air around you and you are almost disappointed. Blood is blood, however, and any one of these humans will satisfy your craving. The way your body feels, you are sure it will take every drop of blood to settle your stomach, fill your suddenly solid veins, and you try to pick the largest person in the steady stream below.

You realize you will have to blend into this crowd, look like them, become inconspicuous. The fashion is different from your current dress and you think to change. Your clothing turns to smoke, spin themselves into new garments, weave themselves around your body. The tight, black clothing allows for more movement than you're used, too, but you are glad for the new options.

The hair on the back of your neck stands on end and something new fills your remade senses. It smells like blood, but also like poison and you lift your nose in the air to track the smell, your mouth watering. What human can smell like this, so tempting and strong in a crowd of nothingness? The sensation gets stronger.

You disassemble, lose your form and come back together at street level, stepping out of the shadows as she turns the corner to your right. She is remarkable, you think, squinting to look at her. She shines like lightening, her blood singing to you, like something achingly foreign and familiar. Her heart beat sounds like a forgotten lullaby and you want to sink your teeth into it, consume it, devour it.

As she gets closer, you step back into the shadows. You have not hunted in centuries, but your instincts know what to do, this city like an urban jungle, this girl like a gazelle on the plains. As she passes, she looks at you, her eyes running over your form, small and firm. You wonder if she really sees you, if she can taste your own blood, like coal and ancient stone.

The human looks away, her chocolate hair flipping over her shoulder, and you know she has to be yours. Falling into step behind her, you wonder what she does and what kind of work this new world calls for. You have stopped into this century for a few days to feed, you are not totally unaware of their technology, but you don't know how it fits together and how this electric creature lives.

Several feet ahead of you, she turns into an alley and you follow, lingering in the entrance. She is watching you, a small black square held in one hand, the other gripping the strap of her bag. You think she is waiting for you and you walk forward, glad that the conquest will be an easy one.

"Stop right there," she orders you, voice light and unwavering.

No one has commanded you in centuries and this child's demand angers you. You stride forward, ready to shove your hand into her rib cage and rip her still-beating heart from her chest. Her hand swings up, the black box humming to life, raw electricity sparking from it, and you wonder if she's not human after all.

"I'm not afraid to kill you," the human says, gesturing towards you with her lightning box. "You wouldn't be the first."

When prey has taken blood, they taste richer and you wonder just how rich her blood is and how death tastes paired with electricity and what her name is. She stares at you with wild eyes, her features morphing in the light from the box and you step forward.

You are not so easily killed, if you can be killed at all, and you are so, so curious. She doesn't expect you to walk closer, her feet stepping backwards, her eyes flicking across your face. When you are close enough, you reach for the small lightning and see the hairs on her arms standing. This close and even humans can smell danger.

When you try to touch the light, it disappears. Your human gasps.

"Don't touch it! Are you crazy?"

You stare up into brown eyes, the same color as her chocolate hair, and you drink her. This close she smells like madness. The girl blinks, somehow steady despite the fear that comes off her in waves. The girl looks back at you with challenging eyes.

She drags those eyes down your body, taking in more than the fleeting glance earlier. You feel judged beneath her heavy gaze, like her eyes are your god and her decision is your fate.

"Oh," she breathes, the corner of her mouth lifting. "This isn't an attack. You want something else."

"I want to taste you," you say, voice like rust and time and fire.

She laughs and you are thrown, the sound like home and comfort. You see her draw a breath to speak and cut her off, grab her lapels, yank her towards you. She tastes like industry when you kiss her, her mouth soft and willing. You didn't know you were cold until she warms you.

Her hands slide around your neck, holding you in place, and you think she must be used to hunting, too. Her blood sings to you, calls you closer, makes you release her jacket and slip your hands under her shirt. Her skin is firm and real, reminding you of your own form and your own form's hunger.

This is where you tear her open, sink strong fingers into blood and muscle, take from her that which you desire. She moans into your mouth, the sound rumbling against your hands, and you change your mind.

Instead, you pull your mouth back, move to her neck, run your tongue over her pulse. Her neck is flushed, the blood so close to the surface and you want a taste. It pulls you and it pushes you, makes your mouth water and your head spin. Her hands tangle in your hair, tug your head back, make you look her in the eyes.

"Are you real?" you ask, not sure of the answer. No one has had this effect on you and you think it must be the electric buzz of her body making you lightheaded and lowering your guard. "Are you human?"

She frowns, furrows forming between her brows. "What? Am I human? Are you?"

You panic, the emotion so new that you lose your form, dissolve into shadow, run from this child of light. You can hear her gasp linger in the air where your body was as you leave her. This new world is too strange for you and you need time. When you reform, it will not be near that half-human god.

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It takes you two days to find your prey again and you curse yourself for your lack of control. You've spent centuries as dust and just the taste of this human's sweat keeps you corporeal for days. You should eat her heart and be done with this obsession. You don't.

Instead, you sit in the shadows and watch her across an empty warehouse. There is more space in this new world than you know what to do with, that's why it took you so long to find this human girl, but all the space holds shadow and you move more freely than you ever have before. Right now, you are corporeal enough to keep an eye on her, but immaterial enough to not be seen.

Your human is in trouble, at least you think she is. A large man hovers over her. He tied her to a chair, sharp wire keeping her in place. She is bleeding, electric blood dripping from her forehead, hitting the filthy concrete with small, sparking splashes. Every drop wasted makes you angrier, makes you think of wasted power. Her skin is slick with sweat, the product of hours of torture.

This child of blood and lightning frightens you, makes you nervous, and you have only been near her once. Her wild eyes stare up at her captor, unafraid. He is growing dangerous, his lifeless blood swirling through his body, and you hate him.

"Tell me where it is," he demands as he has a hundred times before. "The chip belongs to us."

You watch her mouth move and wonder what is happening, what she is planning. She spits, blood splattering the face of the man who brings her pain. It is amazing, her courage, and you think of how fragile humans are, how easy to kill. If she dies, you can consume her while she's warm, her and the man who does your work for you.

A loud smack echoes against bare stone pillars as the man punches your human. Light flickers across her skin, marking the path of pain, and you wonder how he is too thick to see it. Every human you have walked past has been dull, pale, grey, but your prey is like an oil fire, turning the city to ash. You realize she didn't cry out.

"Go fuck yourself," she chokes out through gritted teeth. "I made it. It's mine."

An inventor, you think, that's fitting. Your thin human prey creates things with her electric blood, brings life into this too dim world. The man turns away from the seat to a small table and you transport yourself to a closer shadow, halfway across the room. His bag does not look like a doctor's kit, but it is filled with vials, syringes, and scalpels.

It reminds you of your childhood, so many sleepless nights spent with men who tried to fix you, wanted to drive spikes into your brain, coax emotion from your unfeeling soul with archaic medicines and treatments. You remember sterile rooms and less than sterile rooms, nurses with sweaty hands and doctors with open buttons.

You remember your half-dead dreams, the screams that tore from your raw throat, the last rattling gasps of your humanity. The man who hurts your meal pulls a syringe from his bag, pulls a vial of something clear that smells so foul your nose curls with disgust. The smell runs down your throat dregs memories of your death and conversion and sudden intangible quality.

He draws the liquid into the needle and you turn to measure your human's confidence. Her blood drips from forehead cuts and wire bound wrists with new speed, her heart beating like a rabbit, like the prey she is, and you realize she is afraid of dying, expecting it.

Before you can blink, you are elbow deep in this man's chest, your hands wrapped around his heart. He stares at you and you savor the fading light in his eyes, the way his heart slows to a stop, the way blood drips from still lips. When he is dead, you yank his heart out, letting the rest of him slump to ground without a second thought.

You have fed in the last few days and you are not starving anymore, but the hunger remains, as always. Your teeth sink into hot, wet muscle and you wish humans tasted better, wish the taste of life lasted into death. Still hearts don't satiate you, nothing does, but at least electricity warms your core.

When the heart is gone, the only remnants dripping from your chin, you turn. Your human stares up at you, eyes rimmed with pain and wonder. She leans forward, no longer afraid and you wonder if this image of you, dripping blood, barely holding your form, is somehow less frightening than the human with syringes.

"What are you?" She asks, voice breathy and rough. "You really aren't human, are you?"

You shake your head and step closer, her tantalizing smell stronger now that it is no longer bound by skin. She is beautiful, sweaty and human and brimming with something electric and strong. You wonder if she knows what she has, if she really has it, if there is something about this girl you can not, will not, name that draws you close.

When you place a hand against her sickly pale skin, she leans into it, brushes her lips over rough, calloused skin, leftovers from your human years so long ago. She inhales and you wonder, she makes you wonder so much, you wonder what she smells. Does she smell you or what you are?

Eyelashes flutter as she looks up at you again. "What are you?"

"I have never known."

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It has been so long since you have been in this position, naked in someone else's bed, as corporeal as anyone else. It has been so long since you've touched a woman with something other than malice and hunger, with a different kind of desperation. You don't feel hungry and you decide not to think about the way this human's fingers inside of you fill your perpetual emptiness, how she tastes like forever and smells like the impossible.

You close your eyes, let your guard down despite the proximity of your prey. When she peeled your jacket from your shoulders, you decided to forego hunting for the night. When she sank her teeth into your shoulder, you decided not to worry about consuming her. When she came undone beneath you, you decided to stay beside her, real and solid.

Her hand traces runes on your stomach and you relax, letting the sensation lull you to a peaceful place, the world around you fading from your senses. You think you might be sleeping, but it's so foreign to you that you can't be sure, don't understand the feeling of floating.

Your eyes open and you are somewhere else. Around you is nothing, you are standing in an empty space, blackness in every direction for as far as you can see. Where did your human girl go? Who is that striding towards you. When he is close enough, you recognize your father.

"How?" you ask, not sure you want to know the answer. His presence turns your veins to stone, washes cold water over you. "You're dead."

For a moment, as he stops before you, you think your electric lover must have killed you. Her runes must have been a spell, her electricity is magic made. You don't believe it even as you think it. Your hands have memorized her body, you counted every freckle, the two of you spent hours testing each other and you know her limits are real.

"Hello, darling," your father says to you. "It has been too long."

"Am I dead? For real this time?"

"No." He smiles. The sight almost warms your heart. "You are not done."

You want to feel happy to see him, sad that you're still separated, mad that he made you into whatever you are. Your father was the only spark of hope in your life of despair. Even those with hollow hearts want freedom and choice. He was the only one to ask your thoughts, but he did nothing to stop your torment. His face was the last thing you saw the last time you were human and now you stand before him with more life to live, more lives to take.

"Why are you here?" You look around this void you two are in. "Where is here?"

"It isn't important," he says with purpose. "What's important is my message for you."

He takes a deep breath, stays silent enough to make you think about being nervous, and then he smiles.

"You've made a friend."

This gets a laugh from you, his words a surprise and an understatement.

"I have met someone I don't want to kill, if that's the same thing."

He just smiles, keeps his eyes on your face. "It is. It is enough to bring me here, to tell you that there is another way to live."

You don't understand. "What does that mean? Can I…become human again? Can I change her to be like me? I wouldn't curse her."

"Love changes blood and it only takes one second of pure love to enter and change another."

You have never loved in your life, never sacrificed or protected or longed for another. There is no blood in you to give to another, nor love enough to change. You lift your hands, helplessly.

"I don't know what that means. I cannot do what you ask."

"Think about it." His smile slips into a frown, his eyes rising to look into the darkness above you. "I have to go."

"No." You step forward, but some invisible force holds you back. You want your father back. "You can't. We haven't had enough time."

He steps away from you, eyes still fixed to your face. "We have had time enough. Think of me."

"No!" You scream, pushing against invisible hands, struggle to follow where you cannot go. "Come back!"

The darkness begins to consume him and he raises a hand in farewell.

"Choose your moment well, Sameen."

Gasping, you jerk awake, sweat dripping from your barely solid skin. You are fuzzy around the edges, your soul trying to escape through your pores. The room you're in is unfamiliar, its smell thick and musky. It smells like you and electric passion. It smells like your human prey.

You look down beside you to an empty bed, sheets no longer damp, and miss the hum of your human's body. In the wake of your father's disappearance, the absence of your new companion reverberates through your bones. A throat clears behind you and you expand, compressing together to face the other way.

She is there, surrounded by an aura of blue light, blinking in her eyes and giving her a strange glow. Her legs are curled beneath her, she is pressed into her couch, and her computer blocks her chest from your view. She looks unearthly and you want to sink your fingers into her brain, understand her to the core, see if she knows what your father meant.

Her hand moves, lifting something to her mouth. You realize it's a popsicle, bright red, like watered down blood. Her lips wrap around the tip, her tongue sliding down the side. Your heart would skip a beat if it beat at all. She's watching you, her eyes running over your frayed edges. Slowly, her free hand comes up, fingers appearing over the edge of her computer, and she closes it, the two halves coming together with a snap.

"You were dreaming," she says softly, pulling the flavored ice from her mouth, "about your father."

You know. You were there. Nodding, you rub your hands over your arms, holding yourself together. It is exhausting, you think, to keep yourself corporeal. How do humans move in their physical form all the time?

"I have a name," you offer. "What is yours?"

She licks her popsicle again buying for time and you realize you aren't hungry. Her body has transferred its electric thrill to your bones, filled you to the brim, given you access to the place where your father is, and you are so tired. She drops her laptop to the side, rises to her feet, and crosses towards you. The popsicle carefully held between strong fingers.

Her hand is cold on your shoulders, her naked body buzzes against yours, her blood smells like comfort and sadness. She climbs into your lap, straddles your legs, presses her skin against you, bites the of her popsicle from the stick and tosses it to the floor. Her throat works as she swallows the flavored ice and when she speaks, her mouth is stained red.

"My name," she purrs, "is Root."

"Root," you groan into her neck. "Root."

She tilts her head to the side, exposing her throat and her fingers clench in your long, loose hair.

"Who are you?" she asks, gasping as you scrape your teeth against her long, delicate shoulder. "What's your name?"

You rest your forehead on her collarbone, body unsteady, held together by her thighs and her fingers and her frozen lips at your temple. Names hold power and once they're given they can never be taken. Root's name holds the thrill of a name chosen and you wish you had an equal gift to give. You give something else instead.

"My name is Sameen Shaw and I am not human."

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And so, you become friends. No, you think, watching your human speak with a bank teller. Not friends. Companions. You have never had friends and this young, fragile human is not changing that. She does her work and you watch from the shadows. At night, you taste her, touch her electric form and try to swallow her whole.

She is interesting, endlessly fascinating, and overwhelmingly intoxicating. Every inch of her smells like this new world and its endless activity and soon it is the only thing you smell. You learn about her, her past, her interests, her daily life. She likes fruit and tea and television shows that sell you things in the small hours of the morning. You think that without her, you would have turned to dust and waited for the next millennium.

The seasons change, bright summer turns to pale fall, and you have fewer shadows to hide in. She doesn't mind. You walk through the city with her during the day and she shows you New York City. You tell her how it looked centuries ago. Once, on one of the last warm days of the year, she holds your hand. You almost disappear, but her cool skin and electric blood keeps you grounded.

You share the secrets of your history and let her tell you hers. Her past reminds you of your own, tragic and terrible, but she was born in a time when it is easy to escape and you were born in a time when women and children counted for nothing. You tell her this, one night as a thunderstorm keeps you indoors and you've built a nest from her sheets. Her apartment is dark, quiet but for the storm, and blue light from her computer flickers across your faces.

Her hands type long strings of letters that mean nothing to you, but the noise lulls you into contentment. You shiver in the open air and she turns to you, eyes drinking in your shoulders. A moment later, the computer is closed, she is wrapped around you, and you think this will be a wonderful way to spend eternity.

You run your hands down long, soft arms and you remember that she is not eternal and there will come a time when you don't even remember her. You wonder who else you've forgotten.

This is when you tell her, about the hospitals, the emotions, the sharp needles that still haunt your infrequent dreams. You tell her about your father, your tormentor and savior, god and devil all at once. You tell her about your dream, his words, and her eyes light up.

"Make me like you," she says. "Let me live with you forever."

Even if you knew how, your existence is one you would wish on no one, least of all this angel of the new age. She is youthful, not even four decades old, and you know the endless stretch of forever would break her. Her tragedy does not truly compare to yours, her pain not etched into her bones, the bruising grip of time hasn't marred her skin beyond recognition.

"No."

She smiles sadly and you can hear her mind thinking, flashes of light running down her hair like the wires that streak through the skies of the city. She lets it go, doesn't push, but you know the conversation is not over. Before your human lover, you dreaded conversation, killed your prey before they spoke, but now you have a timeline to tie yourself to and words to fill the days.

It might frighten you, the thought of this human's short life. It might worry you, or make you sad, but you can't pin the feeling to your soul. Instead, you take your human's hand and look into her eyes.

"Would you like a taste?" you ask, almost nervous. "Would you like to disassemble?"

You can smell her fear, the hair on her neck stands, and her body shakes at an impossible frequency. Humans are so corporeal, unendingly solid, and you know that even as her heart beats faster, anticipating the change, she is terrified. In the past, you might have taken her to the sky and dropped her, let her experience true fear.

Now, you wait for her to nod, her tongue licking dry lips, her lungs sucking in a trembling breath. Shifting to your knees, you hold her hands in your own, eyes meeting hers, and you release yourself, let your atoms move apart. She comes with you, her eyes disappearing in front of you and you both morph into shadow, indistinguishable from the other.

It's a strange experience, to not exist so close to someone else. It feels electric and foreign, more intimate than sex and more distant that death. You feel more solid than you ever have before, more real than ever, like being buried underground, stable and whole. It feels like love, if you knew what love feels like.

An electric spark fills the space you occupy, shocking you. You think she may be reaching out to you in this immaterial state and it shakes you to your core, slams you back together, throws you across the room. It hurts when you hit the wall, when you slide to the floor, when you stare up at your human prey.

She is standing on the bed, eyes and hair wild, mouth open as she gasps for air. You think she looks like god, sweating and shaking and flushed. It scares you. Her hands clench and relax around nothing and you think she may have taken something from you. When you swallow, it tastes like madness. You think you may have taken something of hers, too.

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Two months later, you are sitting on a park bench, alone, and watching small humans climb all over plastic playthings. The world is grey in the fading winter light and you miss your electric prey. It has been so long since you've seen her, since you distanced yourself, since you smelled her hallowed blood. It is for the best.

When you are with her, you cannot think. She overwhelms your senses and you feel like flying apart. Her hands on you keep you tethered, tied down to this mortal ground, and you do not like your newfound anchor. The long you spend with her, the more you think you'll miss her absence. You remember fondly when you wished to consume her and be done with it.

A cold wind blows and you burrow further into your coat. You never used to get cold or hot or confused, but here you sit, bare skin chilled by the night, covered skin hot wrapped in wool, and mind swirling, unstable. Your human is probably mad at you for disappearing. It's been months since you've been out of her sight and now you have been invisible for almost as long. You wonder if she misses you.

The smell of ozone slaps you in the face and your mouth fills with the taste of blood. There has been a massacre. Your body grumbles with hunger, your human's buzz no longer filling you regularly, and lift your nose to the passing breeze. It smells like blood taken in desperation.

A loud crack crashes through the city and the sudden heavy darkness makes you disappear against your will. The city is dark, New York City has lost its glow, the power spent in that single boom. The city is cast in shadow and your form gets lost in the darkest parts.

You know this is your prey, you know she has called for you, so you go to her. She is easy to find in the city gone wild, her light shines where all others are gone. As you stand in front of the nondescript building, you take an unneeded breath before you step inside.

The first thing you notice in the almost tangible darkness is the smell. It smells like death and devastation, like fathers ripped from families and women whose lives were lost too soon. The air vibrates with rage and stale hope and you move further into the building, stepping over guards and spilled maintenance carts.

The electricity clings to your teeth as you push open double doors and step into a central room. It is empty, your human the only thing inside, her eyes and hair wild like she's pulled together just to confront you and you think maybe she has. Your steps and a steady drip of blood from her fingers is the only noise.

It reminds you of when you revealed yourself to her, ate a man's heart to save her, bared your teeth and your soul at once. Now, she almost looks like you, looks the way you did when you emptied your hospital of its practitioners, looks like death. Dark shadows circle her eyes and you wonder if it's possible to curl up in them, nap in her exhaustion, like it's a tangible thing, like you are.

"Root," you breathe into the still air, "what did you do?"

Her breath rattles in her chest like thunder. "Where did you go?"

You think about apologizing, about explaining. She got too close, too fast, and it was too much. You don't. You're ancient now, old enough to know that one human is not going to change your life, even if her closeness makes you feel full and soft and real.

"I'm not your captive creature," you say, crossing your arms. "I do not attach myself to you."

She growls and you are almost scared. You stand your ground as she crosses towards you, electric blood singing with her rage. You wonder if she did take something of yours after all. When she is in front of you, she reaches for you, wraps her hands in the lapels of your wool coat, yanks you onto your toes.

"I don't care what kind of bullshit God you are. If you ever, ever leave me alone…" Her voice cracks, eyes water, face softens. "I thought you were gone forever."

You wrap your hands around her wrists, wet with blood, and try to look sympathetic. "Where would I go?"

"I don't know," she laughs harshly. "Where did you come from?"

You don't know where you came from or what you are or where you'd go now that you exist at the same time she does. You think you might have been waiting, hibernating, lingering in the ether until you had your electric lifeline to cling to. What child knows what they want hundreds of years down the line?

This is a turning point, you know for sure, between being alone for the rest of forever or latching on to the only thing in this world that smells like tomorrow. Her eyes sparkle with stolen power and you try to make a decision, try to decide if this is the moment. You think it is.

"Ok," you say, pulling her hands from your coat. "Ok."

"Ok?" she repeats, voice trembling with the fear you invoke. "Ok what?"

"OK, I'll try and make you like me."

She gasps and laughs and throws her arms around you and it reminds you of early fall nights and you curse yourself for wasting months alone, for torturing her with your absence. It has been so long since some has missed you. No one has ever killed for you.

You peel her away from you, step back, give yourself some breathing room that only helps in your mind. You watch her as she watches you and wonder how to even begin, how to even start. You think you were dead when you changed, but the thought of hurting a single atom of her form makes you shiver.

She smiles at you. "You don't know how. I remember. I also remember that your father told you how. You have to love me."

"I can't."

"I know." She reaches behind her and when her hand reappears, it's holding a gun. "But I think you do. In your own way."

Your eyes are glued to her weapon, dread swirling in your stomach. "I have never been able to love. It's not in my DNA."

She raises her gun, tucks it under her chin. She smiles and you think you can feel the static floating towards you, making the hair on your arms stand on end.

"You're dead," she says, casually. "So, I think I have to die, too."

"No!" You reach for her weapon, but she moves out of your reach. "What are you doing?"

She shrugs. "I think this is how it starts. You were dead when your father realized he loved you. Maybe the same thing will happen.

You can only shake your head. This human has been in your life for what feels like seconds, but she has jumpstarted your heart and you mind and you feel as though you might never go back to nothingness.

She cocks the gun. "I really don't know what's going to happen when I pull the trigger. I've never been much of a believer, but, hey, you never know."

You reach for her, throw yourself across the space between your bodies, but you are too slow. One flash of lightning and she is gone, extinguished, splashed across a concrete floor. You catch her before she hits the ground, before she drops her gun.

As you sit on the floor, cradle her in her lap, push her hair from her face with trembling hands, you mourn the loss of her constant hum. She is dim now, like every other human you've met and killed and devoured, and you almost think of sadness. You already miss her.

She trusts you, you realize, to bring her back, but you don't know how to save her. 'Love changes blood,' your father says, but you have no love or blood to give. Your feels cold and you pull one arm away from her to wipe your face and it's wet. It takes long, silent seconds to understand that you are crying, that you are affected, that you are devastated.

It feels like a shadow of a shadow, light filtered through layers of glass, like a song you thought you'd forgotten. You are crying. You love this human, first prey then lover then love. How do you save her when she is already dead?

You remember the movies she showed you one night in late summer, the ones that end with kisses and weddings. You don't think there will ever be a wedding, but a kiss you can manage, you've managed before.

Your lips brush her, expecting electricity and finding only rapidly cooling skin. You try harder, try to pour your new love into her, but you can't. You don't where your love is and facts are not feelings and saying you love her, doesn't make it true. You pull away, drop your head to her collarbone. You once thought lying beside for eternity and now you have the opportunity.

You lived for nothing before, immaterial and motionless, but now you live for her. You'll stay beside her until she is dust and then sink into the place where her dust used to sit. You miss her. You mourn her. You love her.

A strange breeze blows through your clothing, tangles in your hair, pushes its way into your throat. You try to gasp, try to breath, but sensation hurts, burns you from the inside out, throws your head back and you can't do anything at all. Your eyes slam shut and all you can see is what looks like the future.

The breeze flows through your veins, pulls you away from your human prey, and you think you might be scared. You lift into the air, corporeal and aware, your head still back, face to the sky, steady heartbeat like thunder in your chest. Something is changing, you are changing, your pulse ringing loudly in your eyes.

The pain grows and you begin to think this could be death. Just when you think it is over, you think you've reached the undiscovered country, the pain begins to fade. The breeze that has squeeze your heart retreats, slithers out of your veins, out of your mouth, and out of your hair. The floor is hard against your knees when gravity sinks its fingers into you again.

A ringing in your ears reminds you of your corporeality and you blink your eyes open, new eyes sensitive even in the dim light of the moon. You feel weak, exhausted, hungry in a new way.

"Sameen?" you hear, the sound at a distance. "I'm still human."

Your head swings, trying to find her, but it takes you a moment to gather your thoughts. She is sitting in front of you, put back together, her smell like muted madness. A pressure grows in your chest and you aren't sure what to do, what your body needs. Your neck tenses painfully and the pressure grows.

You stare at her in panic and her eyes widen.

"Breathe," she orders you. "Open your mouth and breathe."

You do, the air tastes like relief and electricity and you rest a hand on your chest. There's a heartbeat, your own, and you breathe in short gasps, lungs aching from disuse.

You are human.

"I am human."

She nods, hands rising to cup your face, knees scooting her closer. Suddenly, she looks smaller, less like goddess and more like girl. She is beautiful. Your new eyes see her as she is, not how lightning moves through her or how wildness lives in her eyes. You wonder if you still love her, if you have more than a second with her.

You think about kissing her. After all, time is short now. You are mortal and questions like love need answers. Your human makes the first move, presses cool lips together and everything feels so new. You are whole, forever, and you are with your electric human forever, or at least for the rest of your life.


End file.
